A Footnote on Australia
by Latoya Peterson
Last week, I picked up the new issue of Script Magazine looking for some information on script reviewers . However, what I found was Baz Luhrmann talking about the planning and writing of Australia.
The lengthy article describes the thought process involved in creating a script of epic scope, and reveals that Luhrmann wanted to write a film encompassing the history of Australia. Script explains:
There were a number of issues that Luhrmann knew he wanted to explore, including those related to the continent’s Aboriginal peoples as well as those related to Australia’s to achieve self-determination and self-governance.
After spending six months immersed in research and historical documents, Luhrmann decided to set the film near the beginning of World War II, due to “the transitional period” that it represented in Australia’s history. Also of note:
Another reason Luhrmann chose this time period because it allowed him to shine a light on what he describes as “probably the most heinous and difficult part of our history” – a period that marked a low point in the relationship between Australia’s white majority and the indigenous peoples with whom they share their land. In the time between the two World Wars, so many white Australian cattle stockmen were having relationships with Aboriginal women that the population of mixed-race children was causing a dilemma for those concerned about the country’s racial purity. A government policy was instituted in which mixed race children were taken from their parents, placed in Christian monasteries, and, in Luhrmann’s words, “basically trained to be white. This decimated large sections of the indigenous population – you can imagine the spiritual decimation and the pain. So, it was an extremely dramatic problem that has haunted this nation for a very, very long time and it really began in that period.”
Luhrmann wanted to deal with this issues in his film, not as its primary focus, but woven into the fabric of the piece in much the same way that slavery – while certainly not the main subject of the movie – was an indelible part of the texture of Gone With the Wind.
I find the journalist’s recounting of historical events extremely interesting.
A period that marked a low point in the relationship between Australia’s white majority and the indigenous peoples with whom they share their land[...]
Oh, is that how that went? No discussions of forced removal from ancestral homelands? Or smallpox? So, this was simply like getting a roommate? Informative.
In the time between the two World Wars, so many white Australian cattle stockmen were having relationships with Aboriginal women that the population of mixed-race children was causing a dilemma for those concerned about the country’s racial purity.
This line really jumped out at me when I read it. Relationships? In some cases, there probably were loving relationships between rancher/settlers and some indigenous women. But I think the word they were looking for was relations, as in sexual contact that may or may not have been consensual. I don’t wish to be grim – perhaps I am inserting some of the issues in African American history over on to a different continent. It’s one of those things about colonialism – seeing people as subhuman leads you to treat them as subhuman and rape (of said subhumans) was common. I did a quick search to check my gut feeling, but I pulled up nothing about the relationships between indigenous women and settlers. However, I found two things of interest:
-
1. There is little if any analysis of aboriginal men in these relationships. Most of the accounts involve aboriginal women and their mixed race children. So logically…
2. If this is the case, then where were the white men who fathered these children? Where are their accounts? If they were in “relationships” wouldn’t they have been around to protest?
It is these little omissions that make me think history is being sanitized again.
Hopefully, someone who knows a bit more about Australian history can drop some insight in the comments.
Luhrmann wanted to deal with this issues in his film, not as its primary focus, but woven into the fabric of the piece in much the same way that slavery – while certainly not the main subject of the movie – was an indelible part of the texture of Gone With the Wind.
Where do I even start with this one? Let’s begin by saying Gone with the Wind isn’t really the best comparison this writer could have made. (Though, to be fair, SLB’s review does show that the comparison might be spot-on.) Between lot of interesting criticism of the novel by black women and the unauthorized parody, The Wind Done Gone there has been a massive attempt to describe how many of us do not see the same story when we read Gone with the Wind.
The line quoted above also cuts to the heart of the criticism I hold for a lot of writers (novelists and screenwriters alike) and their treatment of characters of color. Even when we are the main characters, we are treated like an afterthought. We always occupy that space of something-that-exists-as-a-plot-device or a tool of redemption to the other white characters. To illustrate, here is a note on the development of Nicole Kidman’s character:
By the end of [the initial screenplay writing] period, they created a suitably epic tale that Luhrmann describes as follows: “A woman from a far away place by happenstance finds herself in a foreign environment. All she cares about is her physical possessions – she’s tired of spirit and tired of love. She goes on an African Queen-like journey and finds herself with the most unlikely man who she, by status, could never be involved with, or love in any way whatsoever…and with a child who loses his mother. Together they go on an incredible quest and journey and, out of that quest and journey, she is transformed by the landscape and the experience. She finds love for all three of them. The rest of the film is when the world is spinning and changing: War comes and society says you can’t be together.
[...]
[W]ith a desire to enhance Sarah’s “Englishness,” Luhrmann approached Academy Award winning screenwriter, novelist, and playwright Ronald Harwood (The Pianist, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) in February 2006. Initially, Luhrmann asked Harwood to work on the sequence in which Sarah makes her journey to Faraway Downs, but this quickly expanded into the two of them doing a thorough pass thorough pass of the whole script. Luhrmann was thrilled to be able to work with Harwood. “He is one of the grand masters of writing. He has a great sense of the classical and just of storytelling..and had a couple of really cracker ideas [to solve problems]that I had been struggling with for a long, long, time.
There was little discussion of Jackman’s character, who apparently represents Australia. And, for a movie that is “really told from a little child’s perspective,” Nuala’s characterization is also glossed over, save for this note:
The mythological aspect of the script also benefitted from input from a full-time aboriginal script consultant, Sam Lovell, and a number of Aboriginal storytelling and song partners, including Richard Birrinbirrin and Frances Djulibing.
Related:
White Authors, Ethnic Characters
Ballad of the Magical Half-Negro (by Baz Luhrmann)
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
UGLY PUNK GURL! wrote:
interesting. I really don’t know much about the history of Australia and I am ashamed to admit that I never ever heard of Aboriginals until 3 or 4 years ago, when i stumbled across some BBC articles about Australia.
the movie looks good, I love “Moulin Rouge!” so I’ll probably check this out on Sunday for the afternoon matinee.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 12:07 pm ¶
Monie wrote:
Latoya,
Yeah the whole relationships thing between White settlers and Aboriginal women smacks of how some people try to make Sally Hemming into Thomas Jefferson’s lover rather than who she really was; his possession.
Also I am with you on wondering how it was that these White settler men allowed their children to be taken with no protest, if indeed they were having ‘relationships’ with the Aboriginal women. Seems like a big flaw in the story to me.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 12:13 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:
I remember reading awhile back about those schools in Australia where they put mixed race Aboriginal offspring. I do remember in the article it was mentioned that in almost all the cases it was the Aboriginal mothers taking care of these children before their transfer to the schools. The white father was completely absent from the child’s life. The article also stated that many of these children were conceived either through rape or consensual sex. Consensual sex pretty much never involved two officially recognized marital partners. The mother either served as a mistress or as “temporary wife” to the white settler.
Unfortunately I don’t remember where I read this article from otherwise I would have dug it up for you.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 12:24 pm ¶
renee wrote:
“rabbit proof fence” is the movie made about the ethnic cleansing that happened in australia up until the early 70’s. it was definitely half-aboriginal girls but also some full-aboriginal girls. they thought it was the christian thing to do. the hope was that the children would either get someone white to marry them out of pity or be raped eventually causing the eradication of the aboriginal people all together.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 12:44 pm ¶
Fatemeh wrote:
Great post, Latoya! You bring great facets of Australia’s history to light, even if they are reflected off of African-American history. Something tells me you’re spot on…
“Relationships”…uh huh…
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 1:05 pm ¶
wendi muse wrote:
in high school, i wrote a term paper about the racial terminology and shifting legislation regarding aboriginal people and their biracial/multiracial children, so i know a lil bit about this.
in many cases, the parents did not have a choice regarding what happened to their children, even if the father happened to be white, for example, because the removal of their children was backed by law and, much like the one-drop rule, the race of one parent in contrast to the aboriginal parent became irrelevant and many families ended up being divided. also, practically every other year, the government would change how they defined aboriginal vs. half-caste vs. white, leaving people of aboriginal descent and their families in a constant state of transition. these laws even varied by city in some cases, so it’s impossible to analyze in terms of the whole country because it depends on the context (date, location, percentage of mixture, etc). also, from what i recall, the race of the aboriginal parent played in a role in the child’s race (i.e. aboriginal mother = aboriginal child according to some laws, and not in others)
you must also bear in mind that the propaganda at the time leaned toward rehabilitation, much as it continues in australian government-backed programs to support aboriginal families. they emphasize the need to reform and rehabilitate the children as, in the opinion of the govt, many of the aboriginal families are unfit to raise their children (obviously, this is up for debate lol)
in terms of the word “relationship,” of course there were relationships. we can’t view history solely through the lens of abuse and privilege. while i understand the tendency we have to do this, we have to remember that at the time, england did not have a slave/slave-owner relationship with the australian natives. the social division between say, white cattlemen and aboriginal women, may have been less defined than we assume, especially considering the humble beginnings of australia’s white population (criminal colony ring a bell?)
i applaud baz for exploring this subject at all…given, he may have treated it in a more light manner than we’d like, BUT at least he’s putting it out there. Australia (the film) is not exactly the place to get into heavy duty identity politics. it’s an xmas-season movie, not a documentary, so i can see where he is coming from.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 1:51 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Wendi –
I know. That’s why this line is there:
In some cases, there probably were loving relationships between rancher/settlers and some indigenous women.
If we know anything about human nature it is that we are strange and contradictory. Could there have been white men and indigenous women who saw each other as equals, worthy of love? Of course. But the wide range of abuses then (and some that continue to this day) more closely echo colonialism – you can’t love your property or something subhuman. Everything is treated differently, everything is painted differently.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 2:08 pm ¶
Amused0472 wrote:
You can also compare treatment of Aboriginal children with the treatment of Native American children in this country who ended up in missionary schools where their hair was cut and their traditions cast out in favor of Christianity.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 4:05 pm ¶
Jess wrote:
Latoya–
maybe a better parallel is the treatment of Native people in the US. I know that a lot of people see indigenous Australians as “black” (yeah I know that term is loaded but it’s the best one I can come up with that doesn’t require a whole book to explain).
So that means we (as Americans) tend to see things through that lens.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 4:55 pm ¶
Big Man wrote:
Slavery is a part of Gone with the Wind the same way basketball is a part of He Got Game.
Yeah, it’s there, but it’s not what the movie is about.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 5:17 pm ¶
sdg1844 wrote:
I watched “Rabbit Proof Fence” and got the real deal on Australia’s “Stolen Generation.” It was a real eye opener of a film.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 6:14 pm ¶
onely wrote:
YAY! I was hoping you all would cover this movie. I saw it a while ago and was distressed about about a couple aspects of it (other than the fact that I couldn’t decide whether the cheesy dialog and melodrama was being purposely ironic, or not).
After Nullah (the little mixed-race hero)’s mother dies at Faraway Downs, Hugh Jackman’s character tells Nicole Kidman that Nullah needs a mother, she’s a woman, she should mother him, etc, and then we have a scene where NK comforts Nullah and sings him a song blah blah. But no mention is made of the one OTHER woman at Faraway Downs, the aboriginal woman who (I think) shared cooking and housekeeping duties with Nullah’s mother and who was at the station long before Nicole Kidman ever arrived on the scene, and who appeared with Nullah’s mother so often that I was wondering if she was a grandmother or other relative. Obviously she would have had a longer relationship with Nullah, and perhaps–does it even occur to Hugh Jackman’s character?–she might not have had the initial aversion to children that NK professed. So wouldn’t she, the aboriginal woman, also have been a possible mother figure for Nullah? But we don’t see any acknowledgement of that until one tiny scene much later in the film, where she paints Nullah’s face black to hide his mixed-race status.
If this movie is going to style itself as a big epic about inter-racial “relationships”, then they should have made this character less (insultingly) peripheral, I think. As it is, the film is really just essentially a same-old same-old love story between the two white characters.
Oh, and also–they make a big deal of assembling eight (?) people to run the cattle into Darwin, a ragtag band that includes NK, HJ, Nullah, a drunk white guy, the aboriginal woman, and I forget who else. I forget who else because they were so peripheral to the plot, even though without them the cattle couldn’t have been run. The drunk white guy is more fleshed out as a character than the aboriginal woman or the other people on the ride, who I can’t remember.
It wouldn’t have been that much work to add a couple scenes adding dimension to those extra characters, instead of having them be horse-riding props. I mean, just cut out one of the eight million scenes of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman running toward each other with arms outstretched, and you’ve got an extra twenty minutes right there. –CC at Onely
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 6:51 pm ¶
hexy wrote:
First up: Rabbit Proof Fence is a brilliant movie, but it deals only with the Stolen Generation policies in the West. Each State enforced that particular system of oppression quite differently.
From what I’ve gathered in my readings about the US, the experiences of Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders shared elements with the historical oppression of both Native Americans and African Americans.
You’re entirely right about c0nsent being largely absent in sexual relations between Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander women and white men. This is something that continues to today: Indigenous women have a rape rate six times higher than women in the general population, and a vast number of those rapes are white on black.
In 2009, we’ll “celebrate” the 40th anniversary of the legislation that made us citizens of our country. Yep, we’ve only been recognised as Australians legally for the last 40 years. Indigenous children were still being removed into the early 70s. The legacy of the various Australian governments attempting to “breed us out” is still very visible to Indigenous Australians, although white Aussies like to tell us it shouldn’t be.
Have a read through the Stolen Generation Alliance site (http://www.sgalliance.org.au/) and Reconciliation Australia (http://www.reconciliation.org.au) if you’d like to know more.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 9:10 pm ¶
hexy wrote:
Incidentally, the reasons that Indigenous Australians are pissed at Luhrman over this movie are pretty varied, ranging from his misrepresentation of the Stolen Generation to the tacky racist tropes used during the movie to the filming of a linked Tourism Australian ad that used a sacred site in the Northern Desert without the permission of the relevant tribal elders. He’s really gone above and beyond in fucking up a great opportunity to get Indigenous faces and stories on the international screen.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 9:13 pm ¶
Johnny wrote:
When I first heard of the moive, I thought the movie was a marketing video to increase tourism to Australia.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 9:43 pm ¶
Pheagan wrote:
“I find the journalist’s recounting of historical events extremely interesting.”
When I read this I thought you said ret-conning instead of recounting. Which makes perfect sense.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 9:45 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:
@ Monie:
“Yeah the whole relationships thing between White settlers and Aboriginal women smacks of how some people try to make Sally Hemming into Thomas Jefferson’s lover rather than who she really was; his possession.”
Oooohhh, careful. Real life is always more nuanced, multi-faceted and complex than whatever narratives we choose to explain it with. I know that the Hemmings/Jefferson argument usually has two camps – romanticists
who paint the relationship as mutual, consensual and loving, and realists, who state that the relationship’s very nature made “real” love between these two people an impossibility. When in doubt, I find it helpful to set aside the unknowns, and turn to the verifiable:
FACT – Jefferson had some pretty strong ideas about the inherent inferiority of the Negro. This is a quote from his personal journals speculating about what made Black skin Black, and also musing that there was no wonder that Black women preferred less Black mates (historical psyschoanalysists have a field day with this line):”Whether the black of the Negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin…the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and their own judgment in favor of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Octoroon for the Black women over those of his own species.”
FACT – When Thomas Jefferson died, Sally and her relatives were sold to neighboring plantations in order to partially settle his incredibly high gambling debts. He didn’t even free them on his deathbed.
FACT – Sally Hemmings visited Jefferson’s grave as regularly as she was able UNTIL SHE DIED. Just let that marinate for a moment.
@Errybody: If you haven’t had a chance yet, please read “The Known World” by “Genius Award” winner Edward P. Jones.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 10:57 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:
:::Smacks self in forehead:::
I meant “historical psychoanalysts.” Yeesh.
Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 11:08 pm ¶
stella wrote:
I must admit that was one of the reasons I didn’t particularly want to view this film. I figured one would get a kind of glossing over of some real substantial truths about Australia.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 12:32 am ¶
ejunco wrote:
seems like a good movie I’ll check it out not all movies can be the way you want them to be.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 1:38 am ¶
hexy wrote:
I still haven’t managed to watch the whole thing. My partner saw it, and came away with the advice of “Hexy: Don’t.”
The truly disgusting bit is that the Aussie media has been full of people insisting the movie is racist against white people.
*sigh*
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 2:20 am ¶
Lxy wrote:
“Luhrmann wanted to deal with this issues in his film, not as its primary focus, but woven into the fabric of the piece in much the same way that slavery – while certainly not the main subject of the movie – was an indelible part of the texture of Gone With the Wind.”
I wonder how Baz Luhrmann would direct a film about the infamous White Australia policy, which restricted immigration from certain countries in order, as the name suggests, to keep Australia White.
I can see it now: White Australia–The Musical!
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 10:29 am ¶
KuriusJurge612 wrote:
It’s interesting how White Colonists always become the Symbols of a place that’s forcibly taken over, exploited and renamed. Think Australia, the Americas, Boerland (South Africa)
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 11:14 am ¶
nihilix wrote:
Well, I saw it and thought it was marvy. Of course, I’m white and can ignore my privilege all day long…
The movie was four-color, which is to say pretty simple in it’s portrayals.
Our Hero was married to an Aboriginal woman; she died due to racism. Our Heroine fought against the taking of mixed-race kids to the mission island. Our Hero and Heroine broke the gender barrier at the Darwin bar; later, Our Hero and an Aboriginal man break the barrier at the same bar – under attack by the Japanese.
I read the lede to this post and then left the computer and was thinking about it – what you have with the scriptwriter is that naive do-gooder with crappy historical analysis. “I found this – this was an injustice, it’s awful, I’m championing justice” when you miss half the picture or more.
Anyway – thanks for the post!
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 12:57 pm ¶
Squidfly wrote:
Baz, misses a great opportunity to look at the original settlers of Australia. Amongst the -white-convicts from the UK, were over thirty or so Black American ex-pat soldiers from the Revolutionary War, who fought on the side of British. They were the first group to settle on the mainland.
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 6:30 pm ¶
daiskmeliadorn wrote:
Hi Latoya,
I’m an Australian with a degree in Australian history and your questions about the journo’s interpretation of events sound on the money to me. Others have already commented about all that stuff though. I wanted to thank you for this post, it’s exciting to see *our* race politics crop up on the internets from time to time! Same to SLB for the review.
Cheers!
Posted 04 Jan 2009 at 1:13 am ¶
Chef de Cuisine wrote:
A few people wondered where the white men who fathered children by aboriginal women were. The answer is most of them went back to their white wives when they went back to town. Remember that most aboriginals lived on remote stations (ranches), staffed by a mostly unmarried or transitory male workforce. The aboriginal women and girls were considered a convenience.
Unfortunately, some things have not changed:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/14/2189111.htm
Sad to say
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 4:03 am ¶
TeakLipstickFiend wrote:
You might find Germaine Greer’s review interesting, if you haven’t seen it already. She discusses the historical aspects.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/dec/16/baz-luhrmann-australia
Posted 10 Jan 2009 at 7:02 am ¶
Nick wrote:
Haven’t yet seen the movie, but the fact that Baz was commissioned to film two tourism adverts based around the movie really turned me off.
I enjoyed Strictly Ballroom but I think he’s gone downhill ever since. More money does not equal better film.
Posted 27 Jan 2009 at 3:13 pm ¶
Nick wrote:
Just read Germaine Greer’s article on the film. Ye Gods, as an Australian I’m feeling pretty bad about this.
Posted 27 Jan 2009 at 3:24 pm ¶